WARWICK, England — British sports-car maker Marcos is planning to relaunch sales in America in late 2006 with a two-model lineup of V8 cars.

The company was founded in the 1960s, and is now owned by Canadian entrepreneur Tony Stelliga. Under his ownership, Marcos has developed two all-new cars: the TSO roadster and the new GT2 coupe. The cars have been developed in partnership with Prodrive, the British engineering house behind Subaru's WRC rally team and Ford's performance ST Focus and Fiesta models.

Both cars share the same tubular spaceframe chassis, and a front-mounted 5.7-liter Chevrolet Corvette V8 engine driving the rear wheels. "I'll be importing a TSO rolling chassis to the West Coast at the end of this year for my own transport, and we'll see what kind of reaction it gets," Stelliga told Autoweek magazine. He said he was looking for dealers in Florida, Georgia, New England and Southern California.

What this means to you: British tradition and American muscle is a combination that worked for the Shelby Cobra…could work for Marcos, too.